A Serial Chill
by crazzyspood
Summary: It's a cold dark night and a serial killer is on the loose. The case starts weird, and gets weirder! Where will they strike next? Will Beckett or Castle get targeted? Will a different member of the team?
1. Frozen

**Enjoy! :D Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own anything Castle related, ABC and peeps do.**

* * *

Her green eyes slowly glazed over. The figure stood, in the cold, dark night, silently watching the body that lay before him, sprawled across a small alleyway

The figure stood, in a trance, staring at the woman. A look of disbelief shot to his face but was quickly wiped off. Nothing else seemed to matter at that point. The city traffic noises, not too far away couldn't provide a distraction to the state of the figure. Cars rushing by, honking horns yet the figure did not move.

His eyes were full of envy, hatred and strangely, desire. Like ice they pierced the scene of crime, boring holes through anything and everything.

The figure's watch beeped, signaling his time to go. A quick note was left before his footsteps broke the silence in the alleyway.

* * *

Beckett's eyes roamed around the room for any sign of an attacker.

"Clear" She said, and lowered her weapon.

"Hey Castle, can you check those draws please?" she paused waiting for Castle to move out from behind her, "Castle?" She whipped her head around to find Castle not behind her but on the floor bleeding.

"Castle! No this can't be happening," her screams filled the apartment they were searching.

Respo quickly came to Beckett's aid, shocked at what they saw. The quiet shrill of a phone started but no-one answered. The noise became louder and louder…

* * *

The ringing of her phone woke her up. She sighed thankful it was only a dream and quickly answered her phone.

"Beckett" She answered in a slightly annoyed tone.

"We have a body," Esposito said into the phone, "and it's a weird one."

"It's 4am, did you think it would be normal?" She replied sarcastically.

"Actually boss, it's creepier on a visual level than weird." Ryan piped up, obviously with his partner at the scene.

"Alright, where is it?" Beckett asked.

"Alleyway off 24th" The two said in unison.

"Now that's weird. See you in 20 boys." She ended the call and immediately began a new one to Castle.

Three rings and he picked up the phone.

"Hey Castle, we got a murder, it's weird and creepy. In an alleyway off 24th, you wanna come or have your beauty sleep?"

"Detective Beckett, hello to you too," he replied groggily, "I'll be there. It's New York, I know murder never sleeps. See you soon."

The phone beeped to say the call had ended and Beckett put it back down and went to get ready to leave.

* * *

Detective Kate Beckett crossed the yellow tape into the crime scene once again, still feeling the pain of her mother's murder, with Castle hot on her heels.

"I wonder how weird it's going to-." He stopped as they reached the body. His expression turned from mild excitement to absolute horror. The body before him looked very similar to the woman standing next to him. He did a double take just to make sure she really was still standing there.

"Huh. Guess, uh... that answers my question," For once, the writer was short for words.

"Alright, Lanie what do we have here?" Beckett crouched down beside Lanie to get a better look.

"Apart from looking creepily like you, our vic here suffered from one GSW to the chest and several knife wounds to the lower abdominal region." Lanie pointed to some markings on the body.

"She looks like she put up a fight" Castle pointed out.

"Mmhmm, these are defensive bruises, but I'll be able to find out more once I get her back to the lab." Lanie said.

"Anything else we know about her?" Beckett's face became more curious.

"There was no wallet or id on her but all her jewellery is still here, so it's not a robbery gone wrong. The lab's running down her prints now. The boys should be back soon with results."

"Thanks Lanie." She got up and started to leave.

"Hold on, Detective. What's the note in her hand?" Castle put on some gloves and pried the girl's hand open and grabbed the note. He started to read aloud...

"_To, my dearest Detectives & tag-a-long friend...  
__An icy night and a murder to match.  
__Have fun with this one...  
__I'll see you sooner than you think."_

"Get that to the lab as well, run it for prints or traces of anything we can use as a lead," Beckett turned and walked to the car as the boys turned up with results from the lab.

"The vic's name is Brianna Masterson, she is 22 and works at the Café across the road. Her parents are Alex and Steve, they don't live too far from here and she has a younger brother. " Esposito read off the sheet in front of him.

"Ok, that's a start. Get CSU to canvas the area for any of her items seeing as they aren't on her body, Ryan, you and Esposito can ask around at the Café, while Castle and I head to the vic's house." She wrote down the address and headed back to the car with Castle in tow.

Next was the hardest part, telling the family.

* * *

**A/N: First story, be nice. Constructive criticism appreciated. I like smiley faces.**

**Reviews (anything will do) = Inspiration = More writing = Next Chapter ;D**

**=]**


	2. Silence

**Hey guyssss :D Sorry for the wait. I have little spurs of inspiration and I keep going, but when I stop, it's gone for a bit. I'll try and update more often as I have a lot of time on my hands before school goes back for me :) **

**Thanks for the reviews and alerts. They make me smile, woohoo. **

**As always, enjoy. Aaaand. I don't own anything, unfortunately :( **

**Yay :D**

_Chapter 2: Silence_

Before they drove to the victim's house Beckett and Castle headed to the precinct to grab some files. Castle walked into the break room to get a coffee for himself and the Detective. It was around 6:45 in the morning, so they agreed to leave at 7. They sat in silence as Beckett looked over the brief notes Lanie had written from the scene. Castle observed, which in his mind, meant staring at her then pretending he wasn't when she looked up. This went on for a while until they left.

* * *

The car ride to Brianna's house was silent. Castle stealing occasional glances at Beckett but quickly looking away as soon as she realised he was staring.

"You got something to say Castle?" She asked.

"Not really, just admiring the view." He smirked.

"Yeah, well. It's creepy, so stop." She looked at him, and he looked back at her. Castle noticed something different in Beckett's eyes.

"You alright?" His voice was sincere, a sudden change to his normal joking self. This didn't go unnoticed by the Detective.

"Yeah... Not really. This is always the worst. I hate doing it. Seeing their faces fall and knowing what they are feeling." She stared at the road in front of her, keeping her focus on it and not what was going through her head. Castle saw her face change and decided to lighten the mood.

"You know, I've been thinking about the note." He said.

"Hmm, what about it?" She asked, pulling into the curb in front of their destination.

"He's smart enough to get the spelling and grammar right." He waited for Beckett to tell him off. She tried to hide the smile that was forming on her face, but failed and quickly opened the door to get out so Castle wouldn't see her face.

"You want me to come with you?" He opened his door.

"As much as I love telling you to stay in the car and you disobeying me, we may be a while, so I guess you can come." Beckett answered with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

They walked to the door in silence. Beckett took a deep breath, knocked and waited. They heard noises from inside the house telling them that someone was awake. After a moment or two they heard the door being unlocked and a male head peered through.

"Hi, I'm Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD, and this is Richard Castle." Beckett said, now in full Detective mode. Castle nodded to the man.

"We have a few things to ask you."

"Hold on, let me unlock the chain and you can come in out of the cold." The man, presumably Brianna's father said, his voice slightly gravely. The door opened and he led them to some chairs around a table.

"Okay, so what's this about?" He asked.

"It's about your daughter Mr. Masterson." She paused, bracing herself for what lay ahead.

"What? Is something wrong with her? Is she in jail? Did she do something?" The questions came out of his mouth in a rushed manner and loudly.

"Uh, no. I'm sorry sir but Brianna was found dead this morning. She was murdered last night. I'm very sorry for your loss, and I can reassure you I will do all in my power to find her killer." Beckett sighed, and prepared herself yet again to face grief.

"W-w-what? Why? How could someone do this to my daughter? Why!" He asked, his voice pleading for answers.

"We don't know yet but we…" She trailed off as she looked up to see a very distressed woman standing in the doorway.

"Steve, who is this, and why is she saying our daughter is DEAD?" She said, starting to sob on the last word.

"Honey, this is Detective Beckett, she's with the police. Can you please get Josh? We need to talk about this as a family." Brianna's father replied.

The woman left the doorway and went into another room in the house. Voices were heard and soon after another figure, a teenager, stood in the doorway too.

"This better be good dad, 'cause I do not like getting up at this time in the morning." The teen stated, still sleepy but obviously annoying.

"Josh, it is?" Castle paused and Josh nodded, "I'm Richard Castle and this here is Detective Beckett. It's about your sister."

"Um, we have some questions to ask you about Brianna. I know, this will be hard, and if you want, we can come back later, but we just need something to start with." Beckett took over, but let Castle talk when he asked the first question.

"Did Brianna have any sort of enemies? Ex-boyfriends, competitors for jobs, anything like that?"

"No, she was a good kid. Home on time each night after work. She wasn't up for a promotion so there wasn't any competition there and as far as I know, she didn't have a boyfriend. We didn't know much about her life outside of home and work though. It'd be best to ask her bestfriend about that." Mrs. Masterson spoke first, being brave enough to answer the question.

"What was her friend's name?" Beckett asked.

"Her name was Emma… Emma Pond." It was Josh that answered this time. Beckett noted down the name.

"She and Emma were very close; I can't imagine what she will feel when she finds out the news." Steve Masterson answered.

"Alex, sweetie, do you mind putting on a coffee? I think I'm going to need it for later." He looked to his wife who moved into the kitchen and started to make a coffee for herself and her husband.

"Is that all you have to ask us? We are going to have to start organising things soon." Brianna's mother asked, sadly.

"No, that's all for now. If you need anything or think of anything else, please don't hesitate to call. And again, I'm very sorry for your loss." Beckett got up out of her chair motioning for Castle to follow.

"Thank you, goodbye." Castle said, trying not to sound harsh.

"Please find the man who did this Detective." Josh pleaded as they were at the door.

"Don't worry Josh, we will." And with that, Beckett and Castle were out the door heading for the car.

* * *

Castle looked over to Beckett as they were in the car. His eyes searching her face, noticing she was distressed. Castle sighed. He thought it had gone fairly well considering the family didn't completely break down and answered what was needed.

"That wasn't that bad." He stated.

"I know, you handled yourself well Castle. Thank you for not making that harder than it already is." Beckett looked at him, sincerity in her eyes. Castle just smiled.

Neither of them spoke as they drove to the precinct. The silence between them was peaceful for a change. Castle didn't try to joke or act stupidly. He just sat, watching the world go by, and of course staring at Detective Beckett from time to time. It was something he couldn't resist. The silence was broken when he sighed.

"Something on your mind Castle?" Beckett asked.

"No, not really. I'm fine. We have to tell the friend next, right? Ask her some questions too?" The car arrived at the precinct. They both got out and walked to the elevator.

"Yeah, I'll get Ryan and Esposito to run down a few things, like where she worked and double check the families details while we go talk to the friend." She said.

The elevator dinged as they reached the homicide department. They were greeted by Esposito jogging over to them file in hands.

"Yo boss. We found her purse, I.D, credit cards and cash still in there. Oh and Lanie has something to tell you down in the morgue." He handed them the file.

"Alright, we'll go down there. Can you and Ryan find out the address of our vic's friend and where she worked?" She turned and stepped back into the elevator, waiting for Castle.

"We going to visit the body?" Castle said with a grin. For some strange reason he always liked going down to the morgue, maybe it was his love for the macabre.

"Only you could be excited about that Castle." Beckett rolled her eyes and pushed the button to go down. She hoped Lanie had some light to share on their victim and at least be able to narrow their time-line some more.

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**I hope to have the next chapter written within the next few days and updated soon. If not, I'm very very very sorry :(**

**If anyone has any ideas and stuff to spice it up a bit more, then please tell me :) **

**Oh and I forgot to say before. This isn't after the end of Season 2, it's before Demming (yay!) but after the Nikki Heat killer case (Beckett attracts serial killers...)**

**I like reviews, and so does the inspirational area of my brain ;)**


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